


the hands that first drew fire from the darkness

by everqueen



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Gen, and then this turned into a sort of meditation on taz as a story about stories, god i love lucretia so fucking much, i always feel like it's a missing piece of her characterization, through the lens of lucretia because she's the one who shapes everything, where was lucretia during that scene with the crystal on the robot world during stolen century
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 09:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25348774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everqueen/pseuds/everqueen
Summary: lucretia and her choices(title from "Found You" by Silicone Boone)
Relationships: The Director | Lucretia & Everyone, The Director | Lucretia & IPRE Crew | Starblaster Crew, The Director | Lucretia & Lup
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	the hands that first drew fire from the darkness

They don’t ask her opinion.

Lucretia isn’t surprised, necessarily, that they don’t. Nearly two decades and she still hangs back, watching and listening and writing, always writing. She still gets expressions of surprise, when she volunteers to go along on a mission to collect the Light. Never mind that she’s reclaimed it before, never mind that she was the one to find Magnus on the mushroom cycle, so quickly gone. They, at least, weren’t surprised when she followed them down below the flooded part of the city, waterproofing her journals before they dive.

Troth looks directly at her, but says nothing, her focus taken by Davenport’s threat and Taako’s approach.

For a few seconds, before Lup moves, the scratching of Lucretia’s pen across the pages is the only sound in the cavernous chamber, light from the blue crystal shifting across them with the movement of the souls within, the souls who are being threatened with destruction. But this — this isn’t from the Hunger, named in a stroke of Lucretia’s pen, no, they are being threatened with destruction from the very people who claim to be saving it.

Lup speaks, then, echoing Lucretia’s thoughts as she stands between her family and the crystal they threaten, arms outstretched and pleading - no. _Demanding_ they be better. “Are we just going to burn every world we can’t save?”

And Lucretia, who has been spending this whole year recording as many stories from the inhabitants of this world as she can (helped by _Merle_ of all people, hidden depths), she can’t help but think of all the stories that have been lost, that have been _taken_ , destroyed by powers greater than what should be.

Are _they_ now powers that are greater than should be?

And that’s the problem, isn’t it? Lucretia is a chronicler, a writer, a _storyteller_ above all else. That’s why she’s _here_ , after all; this is a story worth telling, and worth telling well. She can’t help but think of things in terms of their arc, their structure, their _story_.

She can’t help but think that this is not how their story should end.

She thinks of memory, then, as Lup and Taako argue, and Magnus and Merle weigh in, defensive and honest in turns. She thinks about ghostwriting on Twosun, about all those powerful, interesting people who are no more than fertilizer, now, or would be if the Hunger hadn’t consumed them. She thinks about all the books, the stories, the music that she heard, and how they only exist now in her memory, and poorly at that.

Human minds weren’t meant to hold so much, she thinks.

But what else can they do? What happens when they don’t make it, when they’re destroyed by a force greater than themselves? All those stories will die with them, all these worlds they can’t save, but something in Lucretia rebels against the idea of the crew being that force to destroy, to wipe all these stories from memory. And what right would they have, to these stories, to these memories, if they’re the ones responsible for their destruction?

“This isn’t us!” Lup is saying. “This… can’t be how we do this!”

Taako argues, of course, Davenport nodding at his back with arms fiercely folded. Their captain is a pragmatist, and Lucretia wonders if he’s been forced into the role because of his position, or if he would argue for this destruction without the burden of leadership he carries.

But Troth carries the burden of leadership too, and she’s facing them down, alone.

“If they don’t get on board,” Taako is saying. “Can we destroy this crystal?”

Lup sighs. “You do what you want, Taako, but I’m not gonna burn a whole world. I won’t do it, Taako, I won’t do it.”

“These jokesters are gonna do it anyway—”

“Me and Lucy will!” Magnus says, slinging an unexpected arm around Lucretia’s shoulders. “Right, Lucy?”

Lucretia freezes as all eyes turn to her, Taako surprised as he apparently remembers that she’s still there, Lup frowning, Merle and Davenport merely waiting.

“No,” she says finally, stepping away from Magnus a little bit.

“Aw, what?” Magnus protests.

“I won’t do it,” Lucretia says, more firmly now. “We can’t— we can’t be the ones to destroy a whole world.”

Magnus looks disappointed, as does Davenport, an unexpected sting, but Lucretia is rewarded by Lup’s smile.

She carries that smile with her through the years, remembering their pledge to never destroy a world, or even think about it.

Which makes it even worse, when the ones to bring the relic plan are Barry and Lup.

“We can’t!” Lucretia says, hating the way her voice cracks in horror but plunging forward anyway. “The Light is too strong, even broken as you’re proposing. The artifacts we would put out into the world would be _devastatingly_ powerful.”

Magnus agrees with her, at least at first, but then argues that it can’t be worse than the Hunger, an argument that echoes of Davenport, so many decades ago, stating that they can’t let the Hunger get stronger.

She tries, she _tries_ to get them to even consider her plan, to see it her way, but she is, of course, outvoted. Taako sides with his sister, of course he does, Davenport is still a pragmatist, Magnus wants to do something, anything, even if it means plunging a whole world into war. And Merle, even Merle, who put in over half a century’s worth of effort trying to get through to the Hunger itself, merely jokes about Magnus protecting them.

After the meeting, which ends with mostly hurt feelings and cool silences, she goes to Lup, knocking quietly on her door.

“Door’s open!” Lup calls from within.

Lucretia enters, closing the door quietly behind her. Barry isn’t there, surprisingly, just Lup sprawled out over her bed, flicking blobs of flame from her wand and watching them drift through the air like petals on the breeze. “Hi Lup.”

“Hey, Lucy,” Lup responds, her ears flicking towards Lucretia. “Come chill.”

Lucretia sits on the bed, smiling a little when Lup pulls her down to lie on the bed next to her. She stays quiet, even though she came to Lup in the first place, thinking.

“So,” Lup starts after a few minutes of silence. “Are you okay, babe? That was a little rough, back there.”

“Lup, you won’t even consider my plan?” Lucretia asks, turning to look Lup in the eye.

“I’m sorry, Lucy,” Lup says, a little gentler. “But cutting off an entire plane’s bonds like that? It would destroy that world.”

“Even more than putting out something like the relics?” Lucretia demands, a little bit sharp. “Lup, we promised, _you_ made us all promise! We can’t just burn a world to stop the Hunger.”

“Everything else we’ve tried hasn’t been enough, Lucy,” Lup says, sounding tired, so very tired. “We can’t just blow the Hunger up, I’ve tried.”

“So let’s try and starve it out,” Lucretia says, softer, but insistent. “Lup, we have to try. The world might have a few lean years, but we can always take down the barrier once the Hunger is gone.”

“We can’t risk it, if it doesn’t work,” Lup says, equally insistent. “If the relic plan doesn’t work, _then_ we do your plan. We will. I promise you that.”

Lucretia holds Lup’s eyes for a long few moments, before, reluctantly, she nods.

And so she goes along. Even after all this time, even after cycle sixty-five, she can’t fight against the will of her combined family. She makes her relic, imbuing it with her piece of the Light and wondering how something so innocuous, a simple white oak staff, could contain so much power.

She keeps track, after, of all the bodies they pile up after they put their relics into this damned world. She’s the chronicler, of course she does. She’s responsible, they all are, for the stories they wipe from the world, at the turn of the crew, from desperate but heroic fighters to the bringers of destruction.

No Hunger needed here, Lucretia thinks to herself, miserable and bitter, as they host a party that’s more like a wake. No Hunger needed here, when they themselves are providing the means for this world to tear itself apart.

This is not how their story should end.

And then Lup disappears.

Lup disappears and she shatters them with it, with her absence.

Lup disappears and with her she takes Barry’s smile, Taako’s heart, Merle’s honesty. Lup disappears and she takes Magnus’s optimism, Davenport’s reserved warmth. Lup disappears and she takes Lucretia’s last scrap of willingness to continue with this plan, with this murder of an entire world and her family beside.

What right does Lucretia have, to Lup’s memory?

What choice does she have?

She might not deserve to be the one to carry Lup’s memory, not when she’s taking her away from the ones who love her most, but she’ll bear it anyway. The cost of the rest of her family’s happiness is too much otherwise.

She writes, as she always has, she’s a storyteller, after all. She writes their story, all of their story, and in her telling of their story, the crew is who they _truly_ are: heroic and enduring and desperate, and _good_ , above all, well and truly good.

Perhaps this is not how their story should end, but Lucretia is the only one who can tell it, and she is resolved to tell it well. Even if she is the only one who will ever know.

Barry disappears, and Lucretia supposes it’s fitting, in a way, for the two lovers to be lost to her. Magnus, Merle, and Taako aren’t hard to place, all things considered, but Davenport nearly breaks her.

The liches in Wonderland do too.

She retreats, having failed and nearly died (taking with her the truth, the truth and _their story, she can’t let their story end like this — _), and recuperates at an inn staffed by a quiet keeper, building what will eventually become the Bureau of Balance.

She weaves a story, as she always, does, spinning a tale of evil red-robed wizards and objects of incredible power. She loses every single one of her Reclaimers, and carries their stories on, even as she erases them from the world below.

She chooses their color scheme, opting for blue and white. It’s too painful to wear red.

Which makes it all the more painful when she finally, finally brings Magnus, Merle, and Taako home and they all insist on wearing red.

She’s astounded, even with everything she took from them, at how successful the three are, how quickly they grow close.

And then Lup almost breaks her, again, burning her name into the cafeteria wall and letting Lucretia know, without a doubt, where her sister is. And realizing, in the same moment, that she has to leave her in her prison, or risk everything.

She thinks to herself, alone in her office, with a sort of bitterness that made its home in her chest decades ago, that she is going to be the villain in this story for what she’s done.

Nonsense, as it turns out.

She begs them, her family, the family she broke into pieces, to let her put up her barrier. She pleads with them to remember what Lup made them promise, so long ago. She can’t stop, even when Lup returns, even when she knows how much they all must hate her, because villain or not, their story won’t end like this.

And it doesn’t.

Because the Voidfish, as the Voidfish do, broadcast her story, _their_ story, and she was the one who wrote it, wasn’t she? And she made them the heroes they always were, even with all their mistakes, even with all their losses, even with all their pain. Because this is her family, and she wrote the truth of their bravery and sacrifice and joy. The whole world hears it, the Story, and then they hear the Song.

And it’s enough. Somehow, there is grace to be given, even with all of Lucretia’s mistakes and losses and pain. Lup forgives her, and Magnus, and Merle. Taako and Davenport, well, they’re angry with her, but it’s not enough to stop them from helping her defeat the Hunger once and for all, for Davenport to fly them up into the storm itself, for Taako to plunge into battle alongside Magnus and Merle as she works to cast her barrier.

And they win.

After everything, they fight, and they win.

And she doesn’t have to carry everything alone, anymore, the whole world is carrying their Story with her. It’s messy, but years and years later, when she’s nearing the end of her impossibly long life, she’s talking with Lup, both of them drinking rich red wine and looking out over Faerun from the lawn of the moon base.

“I wrote it like a story, you know,” she says, downing more wine.

“What?” Lup asks, pouring herself another glass. She’s smiling, although that disappears when Lucretia clarifies.

“The redaction. When I erased our journey, and the relics, and you. I… made it a narrative.”

“Not just a biography?” Lup says, a little bit teasing, pulling a smile back onto her face.

“Biographies are narratives too,” Lucretia says automatically, responding against a common assumption from Twosun. “But our… that century, the fight against the Hunger. I made us the heroes.” She pauses, drinking more wine. “Were we?”

Lup takes a long time to consider the question, and Lucretia finds herself grateful for it, that she doesn’t dismiss it or answer it flippantly, that she remembers what they’ve done, the good and the bad.

“I think so,” Lup says finally. “In the end.”

Lucretia considers this too, and then nods. “I hope so.”

Lup smiles, that same smile she had given Lucretia all those years ago, in the drowned city before the crystal full of souls, and Lucretia responds with her own smile, radiant and full of joy, as they both look out onto the world they damned and saved in turn, and the happy ending they earned.

**Author's Note:**

> hey it's been a while huh! hi!! i'm still alive and still very occasionally writing taz fic!!  
> anyway this was spawned by a late night conversation on the discord about lucretia and how complex of a character she is and also how much i love her. AND i fucking LOVE meta-analysis and stories ABOUT stories, and lucretia is just uniquely at the center of how taz balance is ultimately a story that showcases the power of stories! it's something that's endlessly interesting to me and reflected in the title, like how passing down stories is a light against the darkness and a way to preserve those who are gone
> 
> love comments love kudos of course!!
> 
> thanks i love you bye!!


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